The Message Psalm 92.10-14
Archive for March, 2008
How to be Taller and Thinner in Old Age
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
"You've made me strong as a charging bison…My ears are filled with the sounds of promise: 'Good people prosper like palm trees, grow tall like Lebanon cedars…They'll grow tall in the presence of God, lithe and green, virile still in old age."
Plastic Surgery Alternative
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
"You're all I want in heaven!
You're all I want on earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,
God is rock-firm and faithful!"
Psalm 73.21 The Message
This Cake is LOST! on Me
Monday, March 24th, 2008
Stormie designed it, I baked it. Stormie cut the shapes, I iced, filled and decorated the big one in the middle (roughly 12" x 12"), a white cake with cherry filling. I iced the little ones, swiss chocolate, but freaked out when I discovered that each one had its own design. So Stormie did those. This apparently represents some kind of Dharma Initiative symbol-thingy-something-or-another from the TV show, LOST! , which I obviously, unlike others in my family, do not follow. Whatever. Stormie also painted Dave an apron to match.
The cake was a fun idea, but we only went through 2 of the small chocolate cakes and about a fourth of the big cake. Now what?????
Then we have the mini-crosses I did for the kids for Easter. Years ago, I was involved in making giant ones with Three Muskateers for an annual Ladies Ministries fundraiser. Crazy days! Now-I just made a few, but they were very small, made with the new mint-flavored Three Muskateers which are teeny-tiny.
This last cake was my dad's birthday cake, a 3-layer white cake with buttercream filling as he requested, topped with cherry pie filling. Rocky kept eating the cherries before we served it, confident the red sauce would create a diversion. It was the easiest cake we have ever done.
Who in the world needs this much sugar and flour in their lives?…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Time to start using foam for creating elaborate cakes we will never eat.
My Birthday Boy
Monday, March 24th, 2008
Dave turned 49 yesterday!
On March 23, 1959, a young girl gave birth to "baby boy White" in Topeka, Kansas and gifted him to a large family where, at 5 days old, he was adopted and became "David Allen Rhoades."
I hadn't been born yet, but I am so thankful to God for the twists and turns and dead ends and interstate highways that brought him into my life so many years ago. With all my heart I believe God designed us for each other.
Yesterday I told him I couldn't imagine my life without him. I think I would be just like Mary in "It's a Wonderful Life," who, when George Bailey had been granted the wish, via an angel, of seeing what life would have been like had he not been born – saw that the wife he'd known as beautiful and vibrant and loving and playful, without him was an old-maid-librarian, afraid of her shadow, afraid of him as he tried to approach her. So much of who I am is tied up in the love Dave has freely given me all our years.
So-I thank God for His wonderful plan, for including you in my life. But also, honey, I thank-you for choosing me above all others and for the times you have seen the best of the real me and coaxed it out of me. I am grateful you let me be the mother of your beautiful children and that you trusted me with your heart. You are ever and always my best friend, my lover, the one I desire. As we enter the second half of this marriage, your birthdays will continue to be "happy birthdays to me!"
I love you, Dave…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Love him, cherish him, stay in his corner.
pictured: My oh-so-adorable husband as a baby; Dave at Bible College, where we fell in love; Dave-my-lover more recently.
He Lives
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008I was once dead in my sin/guilt/shame, fully living out a life of me-first, but Jesus Christ made me alive in Him through His death, burial and resurrection and forgave all my sin! He actually wiped out/obliterated the requirements the law had made against me, which just so glaringly exposed my failure and complete inability to find righteousness within myself. He took those things and nailed them to His cross. He won for me. (adapted from Colossians 3.13-15)
The apostles who walked with Jesus Christ in His day saw Him risen. They saw Him with their own eyes. I have seen Him with the eyes of my heart. Thomas, doubting, was allowed to touch the actual nail-scarred, ripped and wounded flesh of His hands after He had died and then rose on the third day as He had promised. Jesus has touched the gaping wounds I have had, He has ransomed me from lifeless existance. He lives. He lives in me.
Happy Easter, the highest and holiest of days for those of the household of faith…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Take up the cross daily and die to self.
Note to my friends: This video – watch it to the end – it shows you what Jesus Christ has done for you and for me! http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ee73e63418003b47d7d5
Coffee
Friday, March 21st, 2008
Last night I was waxing melancholy for the flavor that only comes from this coffee. I just found out people sell it on Ebay. I won't have to wait for my next trip to Maui. God is good.
Spring is Sprung!
Friday, March 21st, 2008We made it through a very uneventful and boring winter! Spring is here. I am knee-deep in a cake project, the windows open, the doors flung wide, listening to the birds celebrate, basking in the morning light.
“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it you want, oh-you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” -Mark Twain
“Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.” -Virgil A. Kraft
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” -Margaret Atwood
GJ Maui
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
See the first teaser for the movie project Gospel Journey Maui (I got to go along and cook for this crazy, sweet cast)
THE Must-see Movie for St. Patrick’s Day!
Monday, March 17th, 2008
Three words: THE QUIET MAN
Two incredible stars: John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara
An amazing support cast, a colorful story, gorgeous scenery, rollicking music, Protestants and Catholics living and supporting each other in Innisfree, Ireland; love and passion, quaint ways, a matchmaker, a brawl that falls into the street and the most wonderful way to enter a home, "God bless all in this house!" called out as blessing as each character enters another's place of dwelling.
This Technicolor comedy love story from 1952 by director John Ford is an absolute classic you MUST watch annually! Some quotes: "A stick to beat the lovely lady?" — Head shaking, "Two women in the house – and one of them a red-head!" — "No paddy-fingers, if you please. The proprieties at all times. Hold onto your hats." — "Have the good manners not to hit the man until he's your husband and entitled to hit you back." — "Woman, Ireland may be a poor country, God help us, but here, a married man sleeps in a bed, not in a bag."
I'm watching it now…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Bless all in the houses I enter today!
Enjoy some scenes put to music: http://youtube.com/watch?v=KHx8RPOGHB8
Tara’s Song
Monday, March 17th, 2008My firstborn, Tara, posted an awesome blog this past week. She is not only a great and honoring daughter, but she is a loving and in-love wife and an amazingly creative mommy-making sure to imprint Hunter's life powerfully for his good.
Here is how to find out about the song of Tara's heart (it's a good one-especially for young mommies): http://tarapowers.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/the-song-of-my-heart/
Here are the scriptures that caught my attention the other day in a totally unrelated search:
"…sing us one of the songs of Zion…" (Ps 137.3c)
""…Can I hear any longer the voice of singing men and singing women?…" (2 Sam 19.35)
I really think God enjoys it when we sing to Him…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Sing head off…frequently!
